Here Comes the Predator

For years, people talked about the New Dylan. John Prine got the label, then Steve Forbert did, then, much later, Bright Eyes. Of course, people were looking in the wrong place: they should have been looking at Ice Cube, especially between 1990 and 1992, when he turned out a series of P-Funk-inflected, word-drunk records that may never be equalled. At the time, he was fresh from the breakup of N.W.A.—the anti-Eazy E song “No Vaseline,” from the 1991 album “Death Certificate,” is one of the finest attack records in hip-hop history, as cruel as it is clever—mad as hell, and twice as smart. “Death Certificate” was and is brilliant, as are “The Predator” and “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted,” and there’s nothing one-dimensional or simple about them: “Us,” also from “Death Certificate,” indicts the African-American community for refusing to take responsibility for the materialistic and violent aspects of its culture. The albums that followed softened up a bit and then drifted into irrelevance, in part because Ice Cube seemed to be chasing production trends and in part because he seemed increasingly preoccupied with his movie career. But there’s an important cultural dimension as well. America in the early nineties was all about race and domestic politics: Rodney King, O.J., Bill Clinton. America since 9/11 has shifted onto a wartime footing, and domestic issues have receded. It’s not that rappers can’t (or don’t) write about our national identity and our standing overseas, only that the eye for detail and love of language that elevates a writer like Ice Cube is better deployed on the home front. Ice Cube’s new album, “Raw Footage,” comes out in mid-June, and the first few singles sound like a slight improvement over recent albums such as “Laugh Now, Cry Later” and “War and Peace,” in which political fury sometimes took a back seat to special guest stars and overly calculated club hits. The first single, “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” has been out for a little while; the video is below.—Ben Greenman

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